Support justice for 14 year old victim of state sponsored murder

On June 16, 1944, ten days after D Day, South Carolina officials threw a switch that coursed 2,400 volts of electricity through the 90 pound body of 14 year old George Stinney, Jr., of Alcolu, SC, sending him to his D (dying) Day. Eighty-one days earlier two pre-teen girls from the same town were found with their heads bashed in. S...tinney, Jr. was quickly arrested and tried for the murders. His father was fired from his mill job and the entire family was driven from town, leaving George Jr. to face Southern justice alone. The trial took less than three hours as the only evidence offered was a confession. The defense promptly rested. The verdict came down in ten minutes and seven weeks later the boy used a Bible as a booster seat to fit into the electric chair. Oh, yes. Stinney, Jr. was black; the victims were white. Stinney, Jr. was the only black in the courtroom.

Now, three South Carolina attorneys are petitioning state officials for a new trial based on likelihood Stinney's execution was nothing but a legally sanctioned lynching. In lieu of that they are seeking a posthumous pardon. Scattered family members, prevented from testifying seventy years ago, are still alive and will swear the boy was with them at the time of the killing. The murder weapon was a twenty pound railroad spike, unlikely to be wielded effectively by a five foot, ninety pound child. A reputed white suspect, now dead, was never questioned and had family members on the Coroner's inquest jury that recommended Stinney, Jr. be prosecuted.

George Stinney, Jr. deserves the real day in court he never received while alive. His case should make every living American who still lights up when he hears of another one of his fellow man becoming a victim of state sponsored murder, re-evaluate their humanity. George Stinney, Jr. is not a fluke. His saga has been repeated dozens, maybe hundreds of times in American history. It is time to end this sorrowful chapter in the American Story.